ON CALL  Book One
by The Curious Kills
Summary: As we all know, Middle Earth eventually evolved to become the Modern Earth, where we all live and dwell. But what has happened to the surviving peoples from ME? A paramedic discovers what while answering a pedestrian/MV collision trauma call at 0312...
1. The Dispatch

**CHAPTER ONE: The Dispatch**

Benjamin Dean McElroy sat in the cafeteria at the back of the station silently, taking occasional drinks of black coffee from a warm, half-filled coffee mug. It had been a Father's Day gift presented by his ten-year-old daughter for Father's Day. It was ceramic, colored white with a somewhat personalized message, and steamed soothingly. Written on top of a faint EMS emblem, the message read, "Thank you for saving my life, Daddy" - A rather touching sentiment, and even more affectionate when one considered the fact that Ben, like half the people at the station, was a licensed paramedic and literally had saved his daughter's life. She had been competing in her school's fall swimming tournament, but Benjamin hadn't been able to come because of his work. Wouldn't you know it - that was the day little Alyssa decided to get a cramp. Her legs froze and her arms wouldn't move, and she sank like a rock.

There is nothing worse than having to answer a call for your own kid.

Thankfully, she had survived, none the worse for wear. That day she learned the dangers of eating ice cream before going for a swim, and, while aquaphobia had yet to rear its ugly head, Alyssa had never again even dreamed of eating or drinking anything cold on the same day that she was going swimming, and vice versa.

Therefore the message on the cup meant something special to Ben, so he drank his coffee out of it whenever he could.

The middle-aged man took another sip and with it came a sigh of both relaxation and ennui. He'd been at the station since midnight, had run a check on the ambulance (It wasn't really necessary; Becky, the resident newbie, usually checked the truck effeciently, but it didn't hurt to go over it himself, just to make sure), and done a spot-check on all of his crew so he knew where they were (Both Liu and Becky were sleeping like rocks in the back room), and yet still there was nothing to do. He'd finished all of his patient care reports on time, so he didn't even have any of those to do. And here it was, three o'clock in the morning already.

A really good paramedic would say that a day with no calls was a good day. Ben was not a really good paramedic. He was just a paramedic, and inaction was almost worse than a bad day (on which the station would get a new dispatch every five minutes). He caught himself contemplating the idea of praying for something to do, then caught himself just in time; considering what he did for a living, that wasn't a very wise thing to consider.

Just then the intercom toned into life and Ben's heart skipped a beat. Had it worked anyway? He then chuckled quietly as his own foolishness and listened.

"Trauma emergency, repeat, trauma emergency."

Jumping to his feet and abandoning the coffee, Benjamin hurried over to the intercom and pushed down the big baige buttom. "Truck Three, McElroy, go."

"Pedestrian-em-vee collision, Treeden Way, possible trauma."

"Give me five minutes to wake the crew and we'll be out there."

"Five minutes, okay."

"Over."

Even as he hurried back to the back room to rouse his two EMTs, Benjamin started preparing himself mentally for the call. Trauma - that meant a lot of blood, internal and external. They'd need gauzes and antibiotics. Already in the truck. Good. Collision - that meant two, possibly three patients, depending on how badly the car and the pedestrian were damaged. The car could have swerved and hit something after the first collision. That meant possible firefighters. He'd check with dispatch.

"Hey, hey, wake up," he said, reaching the first of two aging recliners and shaking it to wake the sleeping girl. "Becky, c'mon, we got a call."

Next came Liu, who was stretched out comfortably on the little sofa - how she could be thirty-two years old and still so damn short, Ben would never guess. "Hey, sunshine," he said, shaking her and flipping a hand at her proud black ponytail, "Lu-lu, we got a call. It's trauma."

The tiny Vietnamese woman was up in a flash - she'd been in the business herself for five or so years, so she knew exactly what the appropriate response was to any kind of call: Get your ass up! Becky was still new to the whole thing, only having been employed for three months, so Sonni Liu went over and dragged the younger girl bodily to her feet. Soon, they were all up and ready for the call. Liu took the wheel as Becky hopped into the back of the truck with Ben, who started running her down a quick review of all th things she needed to remember for the call. Just because she had passed the final did not mean that she had everything memorized like old-timers like Ben did. Okay, so maybe not memorized, but definitely down-path. As they were enroute Liu continued to ask the dispatch questions about the scene and sent the answers back to keep Benjamin busy. Between all three trains of communication, things in the back of the truck became quite lively as the team prepped for the call in their own fashion. Here's an example of what it sounded like.

"Okay, Becky, so what is the average blood pressure for an adult?"

"Ninety to one-forty systolic."

"And the pulse?"

"Sixty to a hundred."

"Per seconds?"

"Per minute."

"Good girl. Now -"

"Ben, Ben, it's a pedi." Liu used the slang term for a child patient, and Ben could have sworn his pulse was definitely not average after that.

"A pedi? Shit," Ben replied, picking up the radio, "Do you have anything on the degree of trauma?"

"Yeah, looks like it's a couple of breaks and a possible skull fracture."

"Okay, I got it." Ben placed down the radio and turned again to Becky. "Where are the splints?"

"In the cupboard over there," the girl pointed. Ben nodded; he had expected her to know, but he just wanted to keep her on her toes until she could do so herself on a dime.

"What splint would you use for a broken arm?"

"Ladder splint," Becky replied, "Because it's stiff and bendable."

"Good girl," Ben told her again, "Now tell me about skull fractures. How do you find one?"

"You feel -"

"Ben, the patient's completely out. He's not responding to pain or sound at all. He's also got some growing contusions on his ankle." Liu interrupted again.

Ben automatically switched leads. "Okay, what about the caller?"

"He was driving the vehicle. He's pretty freaked out and has his little girl with him."

"How little?"

There was a pause, and then Liu responded, "Seems she's twelve."

"Okay." Ben marked that down on a paper notepad he kept in his pocket and shut it again. He turned back to Becky, opened his mouth to ask her another question, and then -

"She seems fine, it's just the driver's apparently a little panicky."

Ben shut his eyes, took a breath, and then picked up the radio yet again and replied, "Got the message." After hanging up, he showed a self-mocking, weary glance to Becky, who giggled quietly before moving to get out a couple of ladder splints.

... And so on. They arrived at the scene about fifteen minutes after leaving the station, and after letting dispatch know they were there, Liu hopped out of the drivers seat and came around to meet Becky and Ben, who had just dismounted from the back. About a quarter mile down the road was a 24-hour store, and Benjamin made a mental note to stop by there sometime when he was off-duty to check their prices.

The anxious driver of the motor vehicle came to meet them, his eyes wide and worried. "The kid's over there," he said, addressing Benjamin as if he was the Second Messiah, "Oh, G-d, I hope he's okay."

Liu, the one with an associate's in Psychology, immediately took control over the frantic civilian. "We're here now, sir. Just relax. Could you tell me your name, please? I'm Sonni Liu."

"C-carl Maxon..."

As they talked, Ben looked in the direction the man had pointed. Lying in a heap in front of a beautifully-waxed maroon Ford 150, the patient did indeed look to be absolutely unresponsive. Mysteriously enough, a number of tastefully-selected dark chocolate bars were scattered beside the body, as if the patient had dropped them just as the truck hit him. A little golden-haired preteen stood over him, rapidly glancing from the similar-sized figure on the ground to her shiny, pink-cased cell phone, with which she was texting rapidly, presumably to her friends about the crazy kid her father just killed or something like that.

With Becky following him like a puppy dog carrying the equipment case, Ben approached the patient and frowned slightly before putting on his 'You know better' face. "Miss, I'm gonna have to ask you to move away now," he told the girl, "Can you go over by your father for a while?"

"Yeah, okay," the girl murmured and walked off without even glancing up from the glowing screen of her phone. Benjamin resisted the impulse to shake his head and sigh disapprovingly before bending down to perform a full-body scan on the injured child in front of him. Kids these days...

The patient's hair was matted and tangled, with fresh blood intermingled with blood that had been drying for as long as fifteen or so minutes. There were also tears and blood stains in his clothing, which looked like they were poorly-preserved artifacts left over from Colonial-period America or something. After checking the kid's spine for step-downs or abnormal curves, Ben told Becky to kneel down by the patient's feet. Coordinating his movements with Becky's, Ben held the child's neck steady as they rolled him over onto his back in one, smooth motion.

Becky was the first to get a good look at the patient's face, and it took Ben a moment to grasp what had made her blink in a mild mental offset. It was hard to tell while he was looking at the patient upside down, but after a few seconds it was visible, even by the light of the buzzing, patchy yellow streetlights: this was no kid.


	2. Patient Care

_((Author's Note: This story takes place in a world without the LOTR books. [I know, it's hard to imagine, isn't it?] This makes it easier to explain why they haven't caught on by the end of this chapter that the patient is a Hobbit.))_

**CHAPTER TWO: Patient Care**

"Focus, Beck," he told the EMT, a little bit gruffer than he intended to sound. After all, he was also talking to himself. This kid could be dying out here, regardless of what age his face made him look, and now was not the time to get gawky or dissituated. They could ask the kid his real age later, if it was a matter of the patient care report. "Start taking vitals."

"Okay," Becky nodded and moved over to palpate the wrist of the right arm. After thirty seconds, counted by her glow-in-the-dark wrist watch, Becky switched to the left wrist, the forearm of which was bowed inward and badly bruised. Ben took the opportunity to apply a cervical collar while she did this so he could free up his hands to staunch the bleeding of the boy's scalp, which had definitely lessened since the call was made, judging by the copious amounts of brown splotches all over his shirt and vest.

"Pulse is eighty," Becky reported, and as Benjamin got a box of gauzes out of the kit he handed his partner the sphygmomanometer. The young woman, her face now having adopted his own air of professionl calm, wrapped the navy blue cuff around the patient's arm and began pumping it up as Ben ripped open the box of gauzes and started applying them to where the blood was coming from.

As he did this, Ben took the opportunity to gently feel along the skull, checking for gooseggs or cuts as well as the tell-tale depression or tenderness signifying a skull fracture. He detected no depressions, but took note of the inflammation beneath the cut he was staunching and the scrapes and bruising on the boy's face.

"Blood Pressure one-ninety over forty," Becky announced, "Respirations five a minute unlabored."

He's going to have one hell of a black eye, Ben noted, gingerly prodding the facial bones to check for anything traumatic there, and boy, is he going to have a headache... The patient's nose appeared slightly crooked and had bled, but there was no blood coming from the ears, which gave Benjamin more reason to hope that the kid's skull had survived the accident suitably intact. Applying a gauze to the base of the nose to absorb whatever blood might spontaneously decide to spring forth, Ben drew his penlight to take a look at the patient's pupils.

"Take a look at his right ankle," he told Becky, remembering what the dispatch had said about a dark swelling there, "And get that arm splinted." Raising the patient's eyelids, Ben flashed a light on the olive-colored, gold-green irises and took note that only one of them was constricting properly; the other one seemed a bit lazy and uncooperative, definitely indicating at least a concussion. The patient's breathing was very faint, as Becky had told him, so just to be sure Benjamin put a non-rebreather over the patient's face; you could never go wrong by giving somebody oxygen. Before doing this the paramedic made sure to insert an adjunct to keep the patient's tongue from falling back into his throat and cutting off the airway. It would also let him know the moment the kid started waking up, due to the gag reflex that would automatically kick in.

The left humerus splinted, Becky moved downward and began a focused examination of the patient's ankle. She sucked in a breath through her teeth at the sight, and when Benjamin looked down and caught a glimpse, he couldn't blame her. It looked like the wheel had run right over at least part of it, and the entire right calf was dark and swollen. Ben didn't doubt that had he poked it with a pin it would have deflated just like a balloon, spraying both him and his young partner with the oxygen-giving fluids.

Seeing Becky grow pale, Ben took mercy on her. After all, this kind of thing took a lot of getting used to, and she'd only been on the job for a couple months, this being a rather quiet town when it came to crime and trauma. "Hey, Becky, go on and get Liu and tell her to come over her with a vaccum splint while you get some more info off of the driver."

Becky looked at Ben with an apologetic glance - she could guess why he was sending her away - but she didn't argue. Getting to her feet, the nineteen-year-old girl walked over and talked breifly with Sonni, who soon came over with her professional face on.

"It looks pretty bad," she commented, underestimating deliberately.

"Yep, it does," Ben replied; he and Liu had been working the same truck for years, so they had developed ways of telling each other when and when not to get literal or stidgey. "I'm going to take another set of vitals. I just want you to take care of that for me."

Liu nodded without another word and set to working on the damaged leg. Ben couldn't help but notice, now that he was comparing them to Liu's tiny frame, how truly big those feet were on this character. Even this kid's grandad couldn't have have feet that big... unless, of course, it was genetic. He wasn't about to say anything while he was standing over him, but those were some seriously big feet.

Just as he finished counting the kid's pulse, a gagging cough sounded from the patient's throat as he began to wake up. Convulsing out of instinct, the kid's eyes were darting from side to side in panic by the time Ben got to him to remove the OPA from his throat. Gently but firmly removing the boy's frantic hands from where they were grabbing at the mask, Ben lifted the non-rebreather and drew out the OPA, thus removing the main issue. Ben quickly glanced back at Liu to make sure that everything was okay at her end before trying to place the NRM back on his patient's face.

The kid recoiled and turned his older-looking face away from it. "Rehi," he pleaded weakly in a foreign language, raising his hands to push the mask away once more, "Kodwuul rehi..."

If Hindi was a purebreed Saluki hound and Welsh was a Border Collie, then this kid's language was the ugliest yet most attractive-looking mutt Ben had ever seen as it came to languages. In accordance with the small one's wishes, the paramedic set aside the non-rebreather and replaced it with a nasal cannula. The patient tried to turn this one down as well, but there must have been something about Ben's expression that told the little guy that saying no - or 'ray' - would not be a wise move this early in the morning.

The patient's complaints subsided into small whimpers and moans as Liu worked on his crushed ankle. It was sad to consider, but the fact was that the kid would probably never walk on it again. Benjamin couldn't help but feel sorry for the kid as he watched him try to cope with what had to have been an enormous amount of pain with the resolve of a storm trooper. A single tear escaped for the fraction of a second as Liu carefully began palpating the calf itself, as well as a child-like whimper of pain; it was at that time that Ben decided to start asking the patient questions - or try, anyway.

"My name's Ben," he said first, introducing himself to ease the tension, "What's your name?"

The boy glanced anxiously at him for a moment before stammering, "N-name? Sin-sindri."

"Sindri?" Sounded Indian. "Where do you live, Sindri?"

"Wh-where?" the kid looked confused for a moment, which wasn't to say that he had already appeared disoriented and extremely scared of what was going on around him.

"Where do you live?" Ben repeated with patience. Training to handle other people's stress, especially the stress and fear that was associated with pediatric or child patients, was all part of passing the National, and having one of his own Ben knew exactly how to handle this so he could get the patient to feel somewhat at ease, distracted from what was going on down by his right foot.

"Wh-where..." Sindri repeated, trailing off for a moment before launching into a breif but fluent sputter of his own language. Ben took a breath and tried again.

"What language are you speaking?" he decided to ask Sindri, touching a finger to his mouth, then pointing toward Sindri.

Instead of respoding with words, the small person reached futilely for one of the scattered candy bars, replying with, "Chocolate..." Burying his frustration at being misunderstood, Ben tried to focus on the fact that at least now he knew where Sindri's mind was at as he picked up the chocolate bar and handed it to Sindri with a helping, reassuring smile. Sindri took the bar without hesitation, but looked carefully from it to Ben a few times before judging that it was safe to open up the wrapper and take a bite.

Like a racoon, it occured to Ben as he watched Sindri nibble self-consciously on a broken piece, he's like one of those racoons Alyssa always feeds her snacks to after school.

"What language," Ben tried again after a moment, this time speaking clearly and carefully so as to not be misunderstood again, "Are you speaking?"

Sindri looked at him, blinking a few times as he tried to figure out what been was getting at before finally the kid replied, "Ardalam."

Ardalam? Definitely Indian. Ben looked in the direction of where Becky was and called out to her. "Becky, get on the phone and contact the Federal Service, will you?" He didn't want to mention the FBI in particular, because that would give a definite impression that something was the matter with the patient, and gossip flew faster than a jackdaw in a hurricane.

As Becky excused herself from entertaining Maxon and his daughter (who seemed quite entertained already with her rapid-fire texting), Ben took a look at Liu's work and saw that she was just finishing up.

"Once you're done with that, you can go and get the backboard out of the truck," Ben told her, and the woman nodded, finished what she was doing and took off. Sindri nibbled some more on his chocolate.


	3. En Route

_((Author's Note: It is well known that nobody in Middle Earth spoke English. The closest thing to the modern language was Westron, and that sounded like a combination of Welsh, Gaelic and German [at least to me it did]. I therefore wanted to show that not only would the modern-day Hobbits still have a language of their own, but it also would have evolved, much in the same way that any language would evolve among a collected group like that. Much to my chagrin, however, I could not find a Hobbit dictionary. If you do have one, link it to me, I beg you!_

_In addition, I've decided after a long talk with my big sister to allow the LOTR books to exist anyway. Obviously Tolkien could have had access to information on the past that we didn't know about and translated the Elven songs into the LOTR series? And he said himself that he had access to Bilbo's book. So there's no specific reason for the LOTR trilogy -not- to exist... But I doubt Ben, the down-to-earth medic, or Liu, the Vietnamese immigrant, or Becky, the average do-gooder, would have to have heard of them. So - Plot holes, begone!_

_And thank you guys so much for your encouraging reviews. They really mean a lot to me, even if I might not PM you back. Arigatou gozaimasu!))_

**CHAPTER THREE: En Route**

As Liu walked away from the scene, Ben took the boy's hands and pressed down on the fingertips, checking for capillary refill. Aside from the definite inflamation and deformity, it seemed that Sindri's arm would be just fine. The patient looked down at his hands, curious as to what Benjamin was doing but still in too much pain to actually try sitting up.

As motor dexterity had already been proven only a few seconds ago by the boy handling his chocolate, Ben simply checked both pulses to make sure they were in sync before moving down to the feet. Capillary refill was obviously differed between the two of these appendages, and the pulse was regular but almost undetectable through the vacuum splint. Ben pushed gently against the good foot and asked, "Can you push down my hand, Sindri?"

Sindri didn't understand, of course, so Ben added a tiny bit of his own pressure to the bottom of Sindri's foot and indicated that he should push with his foot against Ben's hand if he could. Sindri complied, and Ben felt a reassuring, normal degree of strength in the kid's good foot. At least he knew that the kid's brain hadn't been addled when it was struck; the paramedic suppressed a sigh of relief, because he knew good and well that the emergency wasn't over yet.

As the backboard arrived, so did Becky with the phone. "Tell them to wait a little bit," Ben told her, "And ask them if they know of a language called Ardalam."

As Becky relayed this information through the phone, Liu moved forward with the backboard. Together, the two older team members logrolled Sindri and placed him on the backboard, beginning to strap him in so the patient wouldn't slip or fall off as they carried him. Sindri showed initial panic at the idea of being restrained.

"Hey, hey, it's alright, Sindri," Ben told him, in the same tone he used with his daughter so many years ago to reassure her that there were no monsters under her bed, "We're not going to trap you. It's okay." This also told Liu to leave Sindri's arms unbound, even though the boy still seemed very uneasy about the whole thing, especially as they fitted the head straps on so he couldn't turn his head. In fact, that's when everything started to go to shit.

Sindri's eyes darted back and forth in a kind of desperate panic, and Ben knew before it happened that some kind of fuss was going to start. Pulling his arms away from where Liu was trying to strap his chest to the board, Sindri started seriously struggling, tearing at the cervical collar with his small, child-like hands. Knowing there was a good chance the kid was about to hurt himself, Ben quickly took hold of Sindri's wrists and with a gentle but firm voice he said the only word he knew in Sindri's language that would get him to quit - "Rehi!"

Sindri looked at him wide-eyed, and for a moment Ben could feel an almost sympathetic sense of anxiety and claustrophobic terror. Being a paramedic didn't mean you stopped understanding what fear and pain meant; it just meant that you learned to hide it better from your patient's all-seeing, all-perceiving eyes.

"I know you're scared," Benjamin continued, trying to calm the patient down with his voice, "I know you're frightened, but you've got to let us work. We're trying to help you. Calm down." As he spoke, he felt Sindri's resistance lessen until Liu was finally able to resume strapping the little guy down to the backboard. As a reward for good behavior, Ben picked up another one of the chocolate bars and offered it to Sindri, who took it with less fervor than he had before.

He then took the phone from Becky, with a small gesture telling them to go ahead and load the patient in the back of the ambulance. He'd put in the IV as soon as they were situated.

"Paramedic McElroy," he introduced himself.

"This is Gregor Howie," replied the linguist on the other end, "We don't have anything on Ardalam; you're going to have to sort this one out on your own."

"Seriously?" Irritation born of not being able to properly communicate with his patient was projected through Benjamin's voice. "Surely you've got something on it. A country, a people at least."

"Look," Howie responded firmly, "We've tried and done a search through our entire language department and we have nobody, I repeat nobody in the department who can speak Ardalam. You're going to have to communicate some other way. There is nothing we can do."

After a moment of silence, McElroy took a breath and let out some of his frustration on an unsuspecting atmosphere. "Fine," he said at length, "'Preciate it."

"Sorry we couldn't do more."

Click.

That taken care of, McElroy turned off the phone and hurried into the truck, only to be stopped by Maxon, who still seemed concerned.

"Sir, sir," he said, grabbing Ben's sleeve with earnest curiosity in his eyes, "Is the kid going to be okay? Is he going to live?"

Knowing good and well that the stupidest thing he could say was a definite 'yes' at this stage, Ben simply replied with a vague, undecisive, "He might," before brushing aside the driver so he could tend to his patient.

"Becky, you're at the wheel this time," he assigned, mounting the vehicle and reaching into the drawer for antibiotics. With a solemn nod, the young woman jumped out of the back, shut the doors on her two partners, and hurried into the driver's seat to turn off the emergency brake so they could get Sindri to the hospital.

Meanwhile, Ben and Lui had an entertaining time trying to get Sindri not to panic again as the more qualified of the two attempted to insert the IV.

"Sindri," Liu spoke to distract him, "My name is Sonni. Tell me how old you are."

"Name, Sonni?" Sindri responded, refusing to take his eyes off of Ben, who was trying to keep his hands and the needle hidden, while still adressing the oriental.

"That's right; my name is Sonni," the woman agreed with him, "Now look over here and tell me how old you are. We need it for the reports." Ordinarily she wouldn't have said such a thing, but Sindri showed little to no command of English language to begin with.

Finally, Ben turned around and Sindri caught sight of the gleaming needle. His olive-toned eyes widened with fear and both emergency personnel anticipated another panic attack.

"Sindri," Ben said, trying to calm the patient down and distract him with words, "I want you to talk to me. Do not look at your arm, okay?"

"What...?" Sindri asked anxiously, glancing rapidly from the syringe in Ben's hand to his unbroken left arm.

"Just relax, Sindri," Ben told him again, "And look at Sonni." Damn, he really was just like a kid after all, even if his face said he was twenty-something. Lowering the needle and locating the brachial artery, the paramedic finally inserted it regardless of whether Sindri was watching or not; it was either scare the kid momentarily and help him live or keep the kid cozy and watch him die.

Sindri let out a yelp of more fear than pain, and Liu quickly leaned forward to console him, telling him, "It's alright, Sindri, it's alright." The little guy still let out a tiny whimper of fear, and Ben couldn't blame him. Riding in an ambulance by itself was scary; being a patient inside of it was ten times more so. Ben had been on both sides of the equation plenty of times to find out.

"Can you take his vitals while I call in to dispatch, Liu?" Ben asked, and Liu nodded and set to work while the former picked up the dispatch radio and called in.

"Dispatch, this is Truck Three."

"Truck three, go."

"En Route to Prince Regional, 0337."

"0337, Prince Regional."

There was a moment before McElroy could get in touch with the hospital itself. Once he had them online, he apprised them of the incoming situation and prepared them for pretty much everything. He wasn't sure how to bring up the patient's misleading appearance, but did hint that he wasn't exactly a pediatric. The message seemed to go through, and within ten or so minutes they arrived at the hospital, unloaded their patient, and passed him on to better qualified care as McElroy breifed the charge nurse on the patient's details.

It only took about three minutes to get from there back to the station, where Ben could comfortably sit back and relax, enjoying a fresh cup of hot coffee before committing himself to writing out the patient care report on Sindri.

**TO BE CONTINUED, FOLKS - Don't stop reading! **


	4. After All That

_((Author's Note: I told you it would continue! Kekeke... Please tell me if you notice any discrepancies with the report narrative and the actual story, and I will fix them immediately!))_

**CHAPTER FOUR: After All That**

**EMS PATIENT CARE REPORT (PCR)**

Date: _12/7/2011_ Incident No:_ 0019037_ Nature of Call:_ Ped/MV Collision_ Location: _Treeden Way_

Dispatched: _0312_ En Route:_ 0317 _At Scene: _0324 _Transport:_ 0337 _At Hospital:_ 0350_ In Service: _0355_

**Patient Information**

Age:_ 27_

Sex: _Male_

Weight: _150 lbs_

Allergies: _Unknown_

Medications: _N/A_

Past Medical History:_ N/A_

Cheif Complaint: _Multiple trauma injuries_

**Vital Signs**

Time: _0325_ BP: _140/32_ Pulse: _80_ Respirations: _10_ Sao2: _N/A_

_(Etc.)_

**EMS Treatment**

Oxygen 15 L/min via: | Assisted Ventilation | Airway Adjunct | CPR | Splinting

NC NRM Bag-Mask Device | Defibrillation | Bleeding Control | Bandaging | Other:

**Narrative**

_Was dispatched 0312 for pedestrian/MV collision with possible trauma. Liu, Gray and I arrived on scene 0324; pt was unconcious, supine. Driver of vehicle reported he had been driving home w/ teenaged daughter after running an errand for his pregnant wife when Pt ran into road and was struck by vehicle. Driver reported Pt seemed 'dazed by the lights'. Liu interviewed driver while Gray took 1st vitals 0325. BP 140/32, P80, R5pm, Pox undeterminable. Pt had abrasions on the right sagittal half of the scalp and right cheek, as well as contusions on his right shoulder and forehead. Eyes were unevenly dilated, otherwise PEARRL. The left humerus was deformed, indicating a central break. Right ankle was twisted outward and severely contused, swollen. Applied C-collar, NRM 15L/min w/ OPA. Began feeling for skull injuries, could not detect any depressions or tenderness. 0329 Pt began to gag, I removed OPA. Pt appeared frightened of NRM, switched to NC. While Gray applied ladder splint to upper left arm (0330), I attempted to gather info from Pt. Pt attempted to reply, spoke nonfluent English: "What?" "Who?" "Name?" etc. Contacted FBI translator service, language could not be identified. Vitals 0330: BP 138/40, P81, R8pm, Pox N/A. Pt began struggling, reported pain in head, 8/10. Checked again for abnormalties in skull, found none. Asked questions, Pt did not recall name of street, but could describe correct map of place. Gray spoke with the caller, Carl Maxon, while Liu began splinting right ankle via vacuum splint 0334. Placed Pt on backboard, packaged into ambulance 0337. Pt became gradually more talkative and aware. Vitals 0341: BP 130/40, P65, Pox 92%. Arrived hospital 0350, in service 0355._

**Signed: **_Benjamin D. McElroy_

After about an hour of writing and stopping several times to compare times and information with his other two team mates (they all decided to put him as twenty-seven years of age, because despite his height his physical development indicated him to be a young adult, and they flipped a penny to decide whether he had been 115 or 150 lbs), Ben was just about ready to set down the pen, file the paper and call it quits for a few hours - those decrepit old recliners in the back were sounding better and better to him, as if they were calling his name, 'Ben, Ben, you know you want to...' But it was all just laziness. Goodness knows Ben could have taken a lot more than just one run like that before feeling genuinely exhausted. But he did -want- a nap, regardless of if he needed one.

Instead he took another sip of coffee and sat back for a moment with a sigh, enjoying the silence of his little corner of the caffeteria. It was good to be home... well, his home away from home. The little emergency center had everything he needed to be survive and be comfortable, save for his wife and daughter. Still, maybe it was good that he had a place to go where they weren't. A little bit tactless to say, perhaps, but a guy needed a place where he could go and be a guy, and the cafeteria where all the paramedics and EMTs hung out before and between shifts was that spot for Ben. Here he could lounge around, drink bad coffee, nibble on a bag of chips, and pull pranks on the guys, all within the confines of the little area in the back where his coworkers slept, ate and relaxed, and still save lives and feel good about it when the time came. This was his place, his domain... Ben's wife could rule the house they shared and get no arguement from him because of this nice little ratio of income-producing time out.

Ben was just downing the last of his coffee when one of the EMTs came running out from the office. "Ben, it's the hospital. They want to ask you about a patient you brought in this morning."

With a bad feeling in his gut, McElroy set down his cup, picked up his report and walked back to the office where the telephone sat off the hook, waiting for him.

"McElroy," he answered it.

"Benjamin," his old instructor answered, "What the hell did you bring me?"

The student blinked before the cynical wrath of his master. "Sorry?"

"This kid here's no kid. He speaks no English. We've even phoned the FBI and they can't place him -"

"I told the nurse about that," Ben explained, "And I also said that the only word I know is - "

"Ray, ray, yeah, I know," Dr. Grant cut him off, "But the kid won't listen. He keeps yelling at us in foreign tongues and asking for Ben."

"Oh..." Benjamin ran a hand over his face, giving a small groan as he realized the implied responsibility that was being laid on him.

"He won't let us treat him unless you're there, Benjamin. We need you in the ER."

"Okay," Ben replied, then asked curiously, "Do you have any chocolate there, by any chance?"

"Chocolate?"

"Yeah, it's his favorite food, and it seems to calm him down," Ben explained, "There was tons of it on the road when we picked him up; poor little guy was probably heading home after a shopping spree."

"Okay, well, we'll see if the nurses have anything in the lobby then," Grant responded, "See you at the desk."

"You got it."

McElroy hung up the phone, then headed out into the cafeteria and wrote a quick note up on the board: MCELROY PRINCE REGIONAL, PT CARE. They'd page him if anything went awry. He then caught Liu coming out of the garage and told her where he was going.

"Have fun," she wished him with a wry grin, then referred to their boss, "I'll let medical control know you have a case on your hands. And what a case it is. Cute little scamp, wasn't he?"

Ben gave a sarcastic little 'Haha' before moving on and driving off in his own truck toward the hospital, which was only a couple miles down the road. Once he'd pulled up behind the building, Ben went in the back way and entered the emergency care center, which was little more than a simple nook inside the intricate conglomeration that made up the regional hopsital.

The nurse recognized him rom earlier that morning and directed him to the room where he would find his patient, and find him he did; sitting on the bed, anxiously nibbling on a thin bar of what Ben's wife would have called extremely second-rate chocolate, a nurse standing by the monitor but reluctant to touch the patient, who had definitely been combative, if the rumpled sheets and pillow on the other side of the room were any kind of an indication.

The moment Sindri saw him, a look of uncertainty appeared on his face. This was the man who had helped him and brought him back, yes, but it was also the man who has stabbed a needle in his arm and abandoned him to this people in strange garb and white coats. It was as if he wasn't sure whether to be releived or even more afraid as Benjamin approached.

"Hey, Sindri," Ben greeted the patient, bending down to the patient's eye level as Sindri stared at him from the bed. "Are you alright?"

"He won't let us touch him," the nurse informed him - her name tag said 'Jenny', so Ben decided to know her as that until further knowledge developed, "He even pelted Dr. Grant right in the face with that pillow." A tiny smirk broke into her professional demenor and trembled, refusing to go away. "He kind of went back and almost took the other nurse out as well, kind of like a pack of dominoes."

The mental picture even brought a smirk to Benjamin's face; he could easily see his old A&P instructor stumbling backward onto a rather surprised assistant, the pillow bouncing off of his stern features and toppling to the floor with the satisfaction of a job well done.

"Aren't you just making friends everywhere, Sindri," Ben commented to his patient, who gazed at him, clueless but wary. Ben turned back to the nurse instead. "So where's Dr. Grant now?"

"Seeing to another patient," Jenny replied, "'Somebody more cooperative for now', as he put it. All we need is to get Sindri into the X Ray room so we can get some images of his ankle and arm."

"Okay, well that doesn't sound so bad..." Ben replied, then turned to Sindri with a determined, patronal expression, "Now does it?"

Just then, another nurse came by and poked her head through the doorway.

"Um, sir? The police are here; they say they need to talk to the patient."

"What?" Ben, Jenny, and amazingly even Sindri looked suprised at the announcement.

The nurse shrugged and responded with casual honesty; policemen in the emergency room was nothing new to them. "Apparently he stole some chocolate."

Even if he had understood nothing else, Sindri understood the term for his favorite confectionary. Taking one look at the half eaten bar in his hand, the tiny patient quickly pushed himself off the bed with his good arm and tried to make a break for the door, collapsing into Ben's waiting arms with a scream of pain as he took a step unwittingly on his shattered ankle. The paramedic scooped up the boy-like person in his arms and placed his trembling body back on the bed, where the nurse immediately readjusted the shaken catheter and resumed the flow of antibiotics into the patient's system.

Ben turned to give the nurse a look to convey the complexity of the situation.

"Can they wait five minutes?"


	5. There Are Consequences

**((Author's Note:**

**CHAPTER FIVE: There Are Consequences**

"Can they wait five minutes?"

The dark-skinned second nurse hestated for a moment, then nodded, disappearing once more from the doorway to postpone the inevitable arrival of the county cops. Meanwhile, Sindri's fear grew greater as he realized that he had nowhere to run. He obviously knew that he had done something wrong and would potentially be in a boatload of trouble come five minutes past.

"Hey, hey, now," Ben said, placing his hands firmly on the person's shoulders, trying to make eye contact and convey that there was no use struggling against something the patient couldn't avoid, "Calm down, Sindri. There's no use fighting it and you're just going to end up hurting yourself."

"P-police," Sindri insisted, as if he felt that Benjamin needed reminding that the cops were standing just outside in the lobby, "Police here, Ben, arrest!"

The idea that Sindri would have a better vocabulary in the legal department than he would in the bare survival basics told Benjamin that there was something going on between Sindri and the police that probably warranted such a dramatic reaction from the kid. Looking in his eyes, Ben coul see that the boy looked like a cornered rabbit, pupils darting frantically back and forth, constricted with fear, his muscles tensed as if in anticipation of some kind of horrible abuse. Benjamin had never known anybody, not even a child, to be so afraid of policemen while in complete and rational control of their mind. Still...

"Sindri," Ben told him, "It's okay. They can't hurt you, because you're in the hospital and you're hurt. Okay? They'll just take away the chocolate and probably give you a court order." He realized that Sindri might not understand this, but hey, if he knew the term 'arrest' better than he knew the word 'language', who knew what other legalistic jargon he understood.

"Police, Ben, police!" Sindri insisted with a pleading expression; Ben was certain that if Sindri could speak English he would have been begging the paramedic to call a lawyer or take him to Canada. Resorting to his own language, Sindri ennunciated, "Kodwuul..."

Guessing that meant either 'please' or 'seriously', Ben nevertheless shook his head at Sindri. "Rehi," he told him, then translated it into his own language; it was about time that Sindri started learning something anyway. "No."

Accepting the inevitability of his demise, Sindri relaxed in defeat and allowed Ben to lay him down all the way on the bed as th nurse readjusted the IV. The monitor to which it was attached had been beeping spasmodically for some time, due to all of Sindri's struggles and sudden bolting. It was a wonder he hadn't ripped the artery open entirely.

"Now," said Ben, "The police are going to come in and ask you some questions, Sindri. I want you to stay still and be honest. They're not going to hurt you."

"Police -" Sindri started to protest, getting the gist that Ben wasn't about to let him run off or shoo away the cops. The paramedic cut him off, resorting to the little man's own broken dialect, throwing in some words that the kid might as well get used to.

"Here hospital. Here doctors. Here safe." Liu had once told Benjamin that when Becky first met him, she had been instantly reminded of Dr. Leonard McCoy from the original Star Trek; Ben's temperament was starting to live up to those expectations. "You, Sindri, safe in hospital, so don't panic."

Sindri nodded silently and sank back again unhappily; if he didn't understand exactly what Ben had just told him, at least he'd gathered the basic purpose of it: Shut up and stop making noise. Jenny gave Ben a breif, questioning look before going out to summon the police and tell them that they could enter the room. As they did, Ben kept a sharp eye on Sindri, who at any moment might revert to his former state of terror with little notice.

The highest ranking of the visitors, a thick, burly sergeant who looked like he belonged in a cop car more than he did in a hospital (and well he did), approached Sindri and introduced himself as per legal custom.

"Sindri, I'm Sergeant Caleb." His voice was gruff and deep; certainly not one conducive to piece of mind. "We have evidence that you were stealing from the Day Store again." The shop's official name was Day's 24 Hour Mart, but the name had been abbreviated over time and common use, apparently. At the mention of stealing 'again', Ben looked away from Sindri sharply for a moment; so this kid was a repeat offender?

Sindri didn't respond, as if he felt cornered into silence. Without even a pause, Caleb turned away from the patient and instead adressed Benjamin.

"You'd be one of them EMT's that picked him up?"

"Paramedic, actually, and yeah," Ben responded, "The name's McElroy."

"Right. McElroy," the sergeant nodded, as if committing it to memory, "Listen, these little guys, they're like the county's own breed of leprachauns. This Sindri guy's not the first of 'em we've caught stealing from little stores like the Day's in the middle of the night like that, and barely any of 'em speak English. I hear you got something on their language?"

"Nothing that you probably don't already know," Ben explained, "Kodwuul and Rehi."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, they mean 'please' and 'no'."

"Huh." The policeman looked from McElroy to the 'leprachaun' for a moment, as if pondering something important.

"Look, may I ask, officer," Ben cut in on the man's impeccable train of thought, "What are you planning to do with the kid? I mean, you've already got evidence, you said."

"Yeah, the store owner caught him on video and got a damn good look on his face besides. This kid's got no shame," the cop replied with a small chuckle; cop humor does not always catch onto others immediately. "This is the first one we've caught in a while, so I'm guessing he's either just stupid or amateur, both of which meaning he can learn." Ben nodded, then thought for a moment what kind of fate would befall Sindri in any remedial school and frowned slightly.

"So what we're going to do," Caleb continued, "Is just lock him up for a night, put him down on the record, and let him loose. Nothing else we can do, by the law." It almost sounded to Ben as if the sergeant regretted the latter, and his frowned deepened a little bit before dissipating as he realized that Sindri was watching him.

Benjamin had done his time before in a jail cell - it had been a purely innocent splurge, being stupid with the guys, just out of college and all that - and knew good and well that it would not sit well with Sindri to be stuck in a concrete cell at the mercy of the night guard's stock of manners and decent courtesy like that. Of course, the sergeant couldn't take him now, not with that leg of his, but even afterward, was that really the best thing for Sindri?

"You'll wait until he's fully healed, right?" he asked, even though of course he knew the answer already. To do otherwise would be a slap in the face of Human rights.

Sure enough, the sergeant shrugged and nodded his head affirmatively. "Yeah, of course we wouldn't take him now. That'd be damn stupid on our part, for one."

I'll say, Ben thought to himself, but kept his mouth shut.

"There's also the court order option, but I don't think it'd do him any good, not speaking English and all. So we'll just be dropping in from time to time, keeping tabs on him, as it were; these things are known to take a running jump out the window the second nbody's looking."

Ben disliked the idea of Sindri being checked on each day like a tried-and-sworn criminal, but there was really nothing he could do. With the finances he had, he was doing good just to pay his daughter's tuition and the monthly bills. Working for the Emergency Medical System was not something you got into to get paid. It was a life-long commitment to helping other people and saving their lives at the risk and occasionally the price of your own.

Therefore, he simply nodded quietly in acceptance of what the sergeant had told him and remained silent. The policemen, their work done, left the room, leaving Sindri, Ben and the nurse by themselves once more. The smallest of them visibly relaxed the moment Caleb removed his less-than-venerable presence from the immediate premises.

The nurse continued to ponder something for a moment before giving Benjamin a look of dubious concern. "Did I hear him right," she asked, "When he said this patient is a leprachaun?"

* * *

><p><em>((Author's Note: Somebody asked me exactly how much English Sindri is supposed to understand. Well, it depends on what he's observed. He's obviously had the opportunity to observe police and their actions in relation to his people, and he's also been able to catch on a little bit from everyday Human scenarios that he might have seen in the store while sneaking around outside. Think about it - When J-Pop fans learn Japanese, they learn words like "Heart" and "Strength" and "Feeling"... ask them what the Japanese version for "Light Plug" is and they're in a bind [Incidentally, it's "Konsento"]. You learn what has the most effect on your surroundings, and judging from what Caleb's told us about Sindri and the other "leprachauns", guess what major effect Humanity has had on his folks' surroundings?))<em>


End file.
